Beers you can't find anymore

[Mr._Graybeard]

Negra Modelo is my Cinco de Mayo go-to.

One of my old work buddies used to call it Cinco de Drinko.

 

[doctorquant]

Schlitz

I haven't had a Schlitz since elementary school. #realTexanswillgetthereference

 

[cyclingwriter2]

Was a religious Honey Brown drinker in my 20s but damn if I can tolerate the taste now. Still see it at the beer distributor usually.

So I was in Columbus a few weeks back. Ate at the famed Thurman Cafe at the bar. Saw they had bottled honey brown so ordered. It's been decades since I had one. First sip was just nasty. I asked for a glass and poured it in. Looked like water and then some clumps came out.

 

[HanSenSE]

Pacifico has been making some strides in Northern California of late onh Mexican beers, but mostly the big 3 of Corona, Modelo and Tecate rule the market.

 

[exmediahack]

When I was a young adult, Wisconsin still had a handful of small brewers -- Huber, Leinenkugel and Point among them. Leinenkugel at the time was swill. I got a splitting headache every time I drank it, which wasn't often.

LaCrosse-based Heileman (flagship brands were Old Style and Special Export) was the fastest-growing brewer in the state at the time, largely because they were on tap in a big share of Chicago taverns (the old Hill Street Blues intro shows squad cars barreling past a bar with an Old Style sign out front). Heileman acquired the Blatz label, once the most popular beer in America, and built a high-tech automated brewery in Milwaukee to produce it.

Heileman's star faded when Stroh acquired it. When Stroh went under, Miller bought Heileman's Milwaukee Blatz brewery and started bottling the "new" Leinenkugel's line. I think they still use the old Chippewa Falls brewery as well, and probably brew it who knows where else. It's Miller, formerly MillerCoors, a division of SABMiller, now part of Anheuser-Busch InBev.

Huber, of Monroe, Wis., hit a home run in the '80s when the company came out with its Augsburger beers. They were all malt and became very popular. Strohs ultimately bought the label during their ill-fated buying spree. The Huber brewery is still bottling, now owned by the Minhas siblings. I believe they export a lot of their beers to Canada -- what I've sampled is not great.

The Stevens Point Brewery is the fifth-oldest continuously operating brewery in the country, according to Wikipedia. They make a decent macro-style lager, Point Special, along with a bunch of craft-style brews that, to this drinker, always seem a bit on the thin side. The brewery's history is great, though, and I'll pick up a Point beer once in awhile in respect to that.

Drank all of that as a college kid in Wisconsin.

Special Export (the green bottles!)
Point was the cheapest. Same with Blatz
Mickey's Malt Liquor.

Killian's Red was very upscale.

I was the social chair of a fraternity for a year and was in charge of the social budget. Beer. For every $100 of Mickey's I bought at Riley's Wines of the World, Mrs. Lee (the owner) would give me a 12-pack of Red. That was some serious 1995 currency.

 

[exmediahack]

Olde English 800 is not as omnipresent as it once was. Now there's a bad swill with raisins in it.

The 8-ball was real. First time I got drunk was off 8-ball.

A Saturday night in early 1992.

The next day, Thurman Thomas forgot his helmet. I was so hungover, I had forgotten my entire head.

 

[Mr._Graybeard]

Drank all of that as a college kid in Wisconsin.

Special Export (the green bottles!)
Point was the cheapest. Same with Blatz
Mickey's Malt Liquor.

Killian's Red was very upscale.

I was the social chair of a fraternity for a year and was in charge of the social budget. Beer. For every $100 of Mickey's I bought at Riley's Wines of the World, Mrs. Lee (the owner) would give me a 12-pack of Red. That was some serious 1995 currency.

Riley's is still there, as you might expect, and as it was when I was in college 20 years before you (I didn't go to UW-Mad, though). That place is a gold mine.

Heileman owned Mickey's at one time along with dozens of other small labels that used to find their way into Wisconsin as orphans. Lucky, Carling Black Label and many others I can't remember -- all offered up to the college crowd for cheap. I remember buying 6-packs of Reading Beer at the liquor store in my little college town for 99 cents. Jerry the store owner sold a discount brand up from (I believe) the Pearl Brewery: Texas Pride. That name is hard to forget!

I believe Killian's was/is a Coors label. When Pabst revived "original formula" Schlitz about 15 years ago, Coors came out with a "pre-Prohibition" lager called Batch 19. Is that still around, westerners?

BTW, The State Journal in Madison is hiring an enterprise sports reporter to cover all phases of college sports, with the Badgers obviously front and center. I know nothing else about the job except that it's posted on the Lee jobs page. Madison is a fantastic town, of course, and the State Journal takes its sports coverage seriously.

 

[Cosmo]

If you want the hangover of your life, slam down a couple of tallboys of Steel Reserve. Or don't, actually.

 

[exmediahack]

Riley's is still there, as you might expect, and as it was when I was in college 20 years before you (I didn't go to UW-Mad, though). That place is a gold mine.

Heileman owned Mickey's at one time along with dozens of other small labels that used to find their way into Wisconsin as orphans. Lucky, Carling Black Label and many others I can't remember -- all offered up to the college crowd for cheap. I remember buying 6-packs of Reading Beer at the liquor store in my little college town for 99 cents. Jerry the store owner sold a discount brand up from (I believe) the Pearl Brewery: Texas Pride. That name is hard to forget!

I believe Killian's was/is a Coors label. When Pabst revived "original formula" Schlitz about 15 years ago, Coors came out with a "pre-Prohibition" lager called Batch 19. Is that still around, westerners?

BTW, The State Journal in Madison is hiring an enterprise sports reporter to cover all phases of college sports, with the Badgers obviously front and center. I know nothing else about the job except that it's posted on the Lee jobs page. Madison is a fantastic town, of course, and the State Journal takes its sports coverage seriously.

20 years ago, I would have left TV for that job at the WSJ.

Instead, I'm moving to a beach tomorrow… to do TV.

 

[Twirling Time]

Discovered they still make Fat Tire. Not as roasty as I remembered, though. Actually kind of weak.

 

[Mr._Graybeard]

20 years ago, I would have left TV for that job at the WSJ.

Instead, I'm moving to a beach tomorrow… to do TV.

The beach sounds like an easy choice over Wisconsin in February. When I woke up this morning my truck was coated with a sheet of ice.